Passengers Quarantined at Moscow Airport After Ebola Scare

Passengers on an Aeroflot flight arriving in Moscow from Paris spent hours in a quarantine zone on Monday evening after one of the people on board exhibited symptoms consistent with Ebola, but the fears turned out to be unfounded.

A female passenger, a citizen of France, exhibited a fever, signs of diarrhea and bleeding from the nose while aboard the flight, Moscow's Deputy Mayor Leonid Pechatnikov said, the Interfax news agency reported.

After landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, the plane was directed to a "sanitary parking" area, and both the woman and her husband were rushed to an infectious disease hospital in the city, the report said.

"The suspected Ebola virus in the French citizen arriving from Paris has not been confirmed," Pechatnikov was quoted as saying.

Other passengers spent several hours in the quarantine zone, Ekho Moskvy radio reported, citing a woman who was on the flight.

Medical workers had set up cot beds for passengers at the airport ahead of the plane's landing, and inspected passengers for symptoms and recorded their addresses and contact information, Pechatnikov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

The deputy mayor also praised the city's health services for their efficient response.

Sheremetyevo Airport drew a barrage of criticism last summer, when a 24-year-old man who suffered heart problems on a flight had to wait more than an hour for an ambulance after his plane made an emergency landing in Moscow.

The French woman who was aboard the Aeroflot flight remained in a Moscow hospital as a precaution, though doctors said that she was probably suffering from a common cold, Ekho Moskvy reported.